Abuse by technician detailed at hospital

Walter Reed worker guilty of fondling sleeping soldier

April 8, 2007|By Steve Vogel The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Two months before Mario Alberto Echeverri administered a sleep disorder test to an Army corporal at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the medical technician had been arrested for fondling the groin of a U.S. Park Police officer.

Seventeen months before, Echeverri had been observed touching a Walter Reed patient inappropriately and was warned against such behavior. Two years before, he had been accused of improperly touching a patient at a private sleep center in Gaithersburg, Md.

Cpl. Matthew Burgess knew none of this when he went to the Army hospital the evening of April 21, 2004. Echeverri gave the soldier sleep medication, asked him strip to his shorts, connected him by wire to monitoring equipment and had him lie down. The test was part of a study of whether Burgess's headaches, fatigue and diarrhea were connected to the anthrax vaccine he received when he was deployed to Iraq in 2003.

While the machine monitored Burgess, a surveillance camera captured Echeverri fondling the drugged soldier while he was helpless to respond, court records reflect. Tapes show the technician engaging in similar conduct with two other male patients, one an active-duty soldier and the other a 16-year-old boy, according to records and interviews.

Echeverri, who worked for a private contractor hired by Walter Reed, pleaded guilty in 2005 to second-degree sexual abuse of Burgess, court records indicate. He was not charged in the other two cases as part of his plea agreement, said a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Washington.

For Burgess, 34, his experience at Walter Reed is an unforgivable betrayal that points to a failure by the Army to take care of soldiers returning from Iraq.

"I had already lost my health because of the anthrax vaccine, and this on top of it," said Burgess, whose illness was ultimately determined by the Army to have been caused by the vaccine, medical records show.

"The Army always tells you all the way from basic training that we're a family, and if you do the right thing, we'll take care of you," Burgess said. "You believe that. You want to believe that, but then you find out they don't."

Walter Reed officials said they were unaware of Echeverri's arrest by U.S. Park Police or the allegations in Montgomery County, Md. Once they discovered he had abused patients, Walter Reed removed him from his job and reported him to authorities.

"We reported everything very honestly as we knew it at the time," said Col. David Kristo, then-commander of the sleep center.

The Washington Post does not typically name victims of sexual abuse, but Burgess said he wanted his story told publicly because he thinks it demonstrates the Army's neglect of Iraq war veterans and raises questions about Walter Reed's oversight of contractors.

Echeverri, 53, who lived in Columbia , Md., at the time of the April 2004 incident and now lives in Washington, D.C., was accused of touching a patient inappropriately in February 2002 during a sleep study at the Gaithersburg facility of Sleep Services of America, according to the criminal report.

A male patient who said he was touched inappropriately at least twice during the overnight study reported the incident to Montgomery County police, and Echeverri was fired by the company, court papers reflect. Police investigated but did not find sufficient evidence to charge him, a police spokeswoman said.

Echeverri was arrested by U.S. Park Police on Feb. 13, 2004, and later convicted of disorderly conduct for fondling the genitals of a law enforcement officer, according to court papers.

At the time of the incident with Burgess, Echeverri was employed by Dale M. Carafa, a medical industry contractor. Carafa, of Sterling, Va., said she had no comment. The sleep center no longer uses Carafa's service, Kristo said.

Walter Reed contractors are required to perform background checks and urinalysis for all new hires, but officials could not say whether that policy was in effect in 2002, when Echeverri began working at Walter Reed. Echeverri plead guilty and in June 2005 was sentenced to 75 days in jail with two years' supervised probation. He is listed by D.C. police as a sexual offender. He could not be located for comment, and the public defender who represented him did not return phone calls.

Burgess joined the Georgia Army National Guard after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. During the build-up to the war in Iraq, his unit, the 190th Military Police Company, was called up. Burgess fell ill immediately upon arriving in the theater in May 2003.

He was evacuated home in June 2003, but Army doctors in Georgia were unable to diagnose his illness. After researching her husband's symptoms, Robyn Burgess said she pressed the doctors to consider the anthrax vaccine as a possible cause, and Matthew Burgess was sent to Walter Reed in April 2004 for evaluation at the hospital's National Vaccine Healthcare Center.